Operations plan: key questions to address
Here we plan how the venture will provide its product or service to the customers.
The business needs to be designed effectively so that it can exploit the opportunity. It can be designed in the same way that a product, a building or a website is designed for effec¬tive use, so that it operates effectively and efficiently, enabling it to adapt and grow. Here are guidelines for designing a new business venture effectively.
- Form follows function - so make it easy for the customer to find, interact with and
buy from the organisation through well-designed selling processes.
- Processes are kept simple, flexible and robust.
- Responsibilities and functions are defined clearly to avoid overlap.
- The organisation is lean and flat, avoiding unnecessary hierarchies.
- The effectiveness of each aspect of the business can be measured using simple, useful metrics.
The key to operations planning is to use simple, step-by-step processes, for example through process mapping'or flowcharting. The aim of a business process is to make it simple to follow for both the customer and worker within the business, to minimise the scope for it going wrong or for introducing variability which affects quality, and to
TABLE 6.3 Example of sales order process